They're as fair as it gets until I can shoot some controlled environment shots. I'll get around to that over the weekend if I can.

OK. Thanks.

Well, let's take a look again. The two pictures are handheld. One has motion blur from the camera.

Do you happen to know the shutter speed for this particular shot? It was not in the EXIF data.

I found it interesting that you used macro mode for this particular shot.

A photographer might do so if he carries a tripod around everywhere.

Like this one.

You can fiddle around with bracketing but as you can see from those two sets of shots taken with the G1X, it didn't make it any easier to produce a composite image.

I agree, it's not practical to carry around a tripod at all times and, for some photos, it's not suitable at all.

Some people say that Photographers shouldn't use HDR unless they're attempting "artistic shots" or trying to fill in lost details. It looks artificial and there's quite a bit of backlash against those who shoot with HDR these days.

Bracketing goes back a long time. I remember my father doing it when he was a pro still photographer for Metro-Goldwn-Mayer movie studios.

I agree that HDR can be way overdone but it can be effective for filling lost details. Other post-process techniques are available too such as Shadows/Highlight adjustment.

I suppose backlash discussions could be extended to lots of post-processing and other techniques photographers use?